With Sales Rising, Even Big Oil Is More Bullish about EVs, News, Car and Driver, Car and Driver Blog
Even Big Oil Foresees an Explosion of Electric-Vehicle Sales
As much as Tesla seems to predominate the automotive news cycle some days, the California electric-car maker remains a puny player in a narrow niche of the market. Tesla didn’t even reach 80,000 global sales in 2016. That’s a puny portion of the approximately 750,000 electrified vehicles made worldwide last year, by all automakers combined, which in turn added up to just 0.Two percent of global vehicle sales. That’s a reality check, to be sure. But organizations studying the growth of the EV market—including some that are not proponents as much as observers or even competitors—are adjusting their forecasts upward.
According to Bloomberg Fresh Energy Finance (BNEF), EVs will comprise the majority of the new-vehicle market by 2040—54 percent, versus thirty five percent as it previously forecast. BNEF expects EVs will comprise one-third of the total vehicles in service by 2040, as internal-combustion vehicles are retired and substituted with electrics.
There’s one big asterisk to BNEF’s bullish predictions: They include plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), which of course do still have an internal-combustion engine under the bondage mask, pitching in to varying degrees. But by that time more complicated PHEVs will be on the decline, they note, making up only fifteen percent of the EV total—so even given that, almost half of the vehicles sold by then won’t have a gas tank.
Now, even Big Oil believes it is observing a quicker rise for EVs than previously forecast. Exxon Mobil had been anticipating 64.8 million EVs globally, but it has now raised that estimate to one hundred million. BP foresees EVs breaching the 100-million mark by 2035, a big leap beyond its previous forecast of 71.Four million. The International Energy Agency, too, has boosted its conservative base-level estimate to more than fifty five million EVs by 2030, cumulatively, while OPEC expects to see two hundred sixty six million EVs by 2040.
“While EV sales to two thousand twenty five will remain relatively low, we expect an inflection point in adoption inbetween two thousand twenty five and 2030, as EVs become economical on an unsubsidized total cost of ownership basis across mass-market vehicle classes,” said BNEF, in a summary report released last week.
No, EVs Aren’t an Eco Fad
Translation: It’s no longer a question of if sales of electrified cars will take off, nor even when they will do so, but to what degree. Already, for the very first half of 2017, about 44,000 battery electrical vehicles were sold in the U.S., up twenty nine percent from last year. It’s still only Ten,000 extra EVs in raw numbers, but significant as a trend-indicator.
Regulation will spur some growth, especially when it’s backed by government subsidies and tax credits. But falling battery costs are the major factor in these fresh, more optimistic projections, several of which foresee a day when EVs are cost competitive with traditional cars even without government holding its thumb on the scale. Bloomberg predicts that lithium-ion battery costs per kilowatt-hour will drop from today’s $273 to just $73 by two thousand thirty and that, by 2040, electrified vehicles will displace eight million barrels of fuel per day (but add five percent to global electrical play use). Earlier this year, BNEF found that less expensive batteries will permit electrical vehicles to have a lower overall cost of ownership (without incentives) by the mid-2020s. The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) has pointed to a rise in global competition and battery production, which will proceed to thrust electric-vehicle prices downward.
A Future of Gas Pumps and Charging Stations
There’s one more reality check to all of this. Despite at least one thought-provoking economic probe suggesting even swifter growth of electrical vehicles if autonomous-vehicle technology moves rapidly, the vast majority of experts expect that vehicles with internal combustion engines will comprise the majority of sales for twenty years or more.
For awhile yet, through 2025, the number of plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) that employ both technologies will surge—and be a factor that muddies such calculations. But after that, Bloomberg suggests, low-cost, high energy-density batteries will tilt the market away from cars that can use fossil fuels.
Saudi Aramco and Royal Dutch Shell, however, recently both emphasized that gasoline will remain an essential part of the transportation economy for a long, long time. Royal Dutch Shell CEO Ben van Beurden said the transition to low-carbon technologies wouldn’t be a rapid revolution but something that will “take place over generations.” Charging up will just become the norm a little sooner than we thought.
With Sales Rising, Even Big Oil Is More Bullish about EVs, News, Car and Driver, Car and Driver Blog
Even Big Oil Foresees an Explosion of Electric-Vehicle Sales
As much as Tesla seems to predominate the automotive news cycle some days, the California electric-car maker remains a puny player in a narrow niche of the market. Tesla didn’t even reach 80,000 global sales in 2016. That’s a puny portion of the approximately 750,000 electrical vehicles made worldwide last year, by all automakers combined, which in turn added up to just 0.Two percent of global vehicle sales. That’s a reality check, to be sure. But organizations studying the growth of the EV market—including some that are not proponents as much as observers or even competitors—are adjusting their forecasts upward.
According to Bloomberg Fresh Energy Finance (BNEF), EVs will comprise the majority of the new-vehicle market by 2040—54 percent, versus thirty five percent as it previously forecast. BNEF expects EVs will comprise one-third of the total vehicles in service by 2040, as internal-combustion vehicles are retired and substituted with electrics.
There’s one big asterisk to BNEF’s bullish predictions: They include plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), which of course do still have an internal-combustion engine under the bondage mask, pitching in to varying degrees. But by that time more complicated PHEVs will be on the decline, they note, making up only fifteen percent of the EV total—so even given that, almost half of the vehicles sold by then won’t have a gas tank.
Now, even Big Oil believes it is eyeing a quicker rise for EVs than previously forecast. Exxon Mobil had been anticipating 64.8 million EVs globally, but it has now raised that estimate to one hundred million. BP foresees EVs breaching the 100-million mark by 2035, a big leap beyond its previous forecast of 71.Four million. The International Energy Agency, too, has boosted its conservative base-level estimate to more than fifty five million EVs by 2030, cumulatively, while OPEC expects to see two hundred sixty six million EVs by 2040.
“While EV sales to two thousand twenty five will remain relatively low, we expect an inflection point in adoption inbetween two thousand twenty five and 2030, as EVs become economical on an unsubsidized total cost of ownership basis across mass-market vehicle classes,” said BNEF, in a summary report released last week.
No, EVs Aren’t an Eco Fad
Translation: It’s no longer a question of if sales of electrical cars will take off, nor even when they will do so, but to what degree. Already, for the very first half of 2017, about 44,000 battery electrical vehicles were sold in the U.S., up twenty nine percent from last year. It’s still only Ten,000 extra EVs in raw numbers, but significant as a trend-indicator.
Regulation will spur some growth, especially when it’s backed by government subsidies and tax credits. But falling battery costs are the major factor in these fresh, more optimistic projections, several of which foresee a day when EVs are cost competitive with traditional cars even without government holding its thumb on the scale. Bloomberg predicts that lithium-ion battery costs per kilowatt-hour will drop from today’s $273 to just $73 by two thousand thirty and that, by 2040, electrified vehicles will displace eight million barrels of fuel per day (but add five percent to global tens unit use). Earlier this year, BNEF found that less expensive batteries will permit electrified vehicles to have a lower overall cost of ownership (without incentives) by the mid-2020s. The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) has pointed to a rise in global competition and battery production, which will proceed to shove electric-vehicle prices downward.
A Future of Gas Pumps and Charging Stations
There’s one more reality check to all of this. Despite at least one thought-provoking economic examine suggesting even swifter growth of electrified vehicles if autonomous-vehicle technology moves rapidly, the vast majority of experts expect that vehicles with internal combustion engines will comprise the majority of sales for twenty years or more.
For awhile yet, through 2025, the number of plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) that employ both technologies will surge—and be a factor that muddies such calculations. But after that, Bloomberg suggests, low-cost, high energy-density batteries will tilt the market away from cars that can use fossil fuels.
Saudi Aramco and Royal Dutch Shell, however, recently both emphasized that gasoline will remain an essential part of the transportation economy for a long, long time. Royal Dutch Shell CEO Ben van Beurden said the transition to low-carbon technologies wouldn’t be a rapid revolution but something that will “take place over generations.” Charging up will just become the norm a little sooner than we thought.